We’ve had a lot to celebrate recently, from a ribbon cutting to graduations to many new people joining our team to a new arrival soon joining the family of one of our team members. This has given our offices chances to celebrate and get to know each other in this transition time of our company. Thank you to everyone who has celebrated these milestones and changes with us.
Below is a glimpse into some of these celebrations.
On Friday, June 2nd, we had a large party at the Chesapeake Western Depot that combined our ribbon cutting ceremony with our monthly First Friday celebration, this time featuring three artists (Veronica, Asha, and the Clymer & Kurtz band)!
Photos of speeches and the Clymer & Kurtz band by Tony DiStefano
At the ceremony, Deborah Smith, Mayor Deanna Reed, Charles Hendricks, Raymond Gaines, and Rockingham County Circuit Court Clerk Chaz Haywood spoke about the importance of community. It really was a community event, and we felt the love and support. Thank you to everyone who came out to join us in this celebration!
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Yesterday we celebrated our team members and their accomplishments: new family additions, graduation from three universities (UVA, JMU, and Liberty), and welcoming the hiring of six new staff members in the past year!
Team Lunch
Site visit to 5|Row Apartments, a project that Paul, Ray, and Adrienne are working on, to see up-close what the process looks like.
We are so excited for all of the additions to the team and perspectives and skills that they bring. There’s surely a lot to celebrate.
On #InternationalWomensDay we highlight the women of Gaines Group Architects! Adrienne, Deborah, Carla, Mariya, and Asha are all integral team members that bring diversity, skill, and knowledge to each and every project we work on in the office. We appreciate them every day, but especially today on International Women’s Day we take the opportunity to celebrate them and all of the knowledge and skills that they bring to Gaines Group and the community.
Adrienne is a partner in the Charlottesville office, leads our multi-family project division and is our go-to for ADA compliance questions. She balances being a mom, wife, and small business owner with taking care of our clients on some of biggest scope projects.
Deborah has one of the hardest tasks in the firm, she works directly with Charles. She is a partner in Harrisonburg and runs the Harrisonburg office. She has become the go-to for building code compliance questions in our office and is often the one that is tasked with “finishing” the projects that Charles starts. She is a dog mom, a business school graduate from EMU, and a active volunteer with the Harrisonburg Women’s Service League
Carla has been with the firm the longest of all the women in our team and does all the behind the scenes finance work, running the accounting department single handed. She is active in her church community and balances being a wife and mom to her two children.
Mariya is a new designer for our team and is learning our processes and standards. She works with Deborah and Adrienne on a variety of projects while balancing her volunteer efforts at her church.
Asha is our newest addition to the team joining us as our Harrisonburg office manager and marketing team leader. She recently graduated from EMU, is balancing between two part-time jobs, and spends her free time creating art and caring for her plants.
Hiring Architectural Associate / Design Professional
Attention Architects and Interior Designers, we are looking for community-focusedteam members to join our growing team. Gaines Group Architects, an award-winning design firm, continues to grow and we are looking for additional architectural graduates to add to our team. If you are just getting ready to graduate or 5+ years of experience and would enjoy a firm that is dedicated to design that builds stronger communities, please reach out to us. We have positions open in both Harrisonburg and Charlottesville.
The architectural designer position will serve to support the development of all types and styles of projects with a focus on healthy, energy-efficient, and durable design solutions. You will get experience in all phases of design as well as client relationship building. We collaborate on everything in our office and work as a team on all projects.
We are looking for someone dedicated to community service that loves all types and styles of architecture. We will help you along the way to learn and grow as a designer. A strong applicant will have a desire to understand building science and constructability of all project types.
We are more interested in finding the right addition to our team than in a particular skill set.
Send your resume and portfolio to Charles@thegainesgroup.com
Tasks you may do on a typical day:
Construction Documents
Rendering
Client meetings
Job site visits
Field Verification
Required Qualifications:
Architectural or Interior Design degree from an accredited university
Familiarity with AutoCAD, Revit, Adobe, and Sketch-up
Reliable, self-motivated, independent, adaptable, and versatile with an enthusiastic collaborative spirit.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook), and Acrobat.
Excellent critical thinking skills with exacting attention to detail.
An ability to manage multiple priorities and diverse responsibilities.
Strong verbal, written, and visual communication skills.
Strong interpersonal skills.
Preferred Qualifications:
Knowledge of construction documents and the design and construction processes.
With 36 years of experience in Virginia, this award-winning architecture and interior design firm works hard to deliver excellent service at an affordable price. With offices in Charlottesville and Harrisonburg, Gaines Group Architects can serve design needs anywhere in Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, or North Carolina. Constantly looking for the best answer, we work tirelessly to stay on top of the latest trends and best practices in the construction industry. We believe strongly in being in service to our community and the right person for this position will share that passion.
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: Based on Experience
Send your resume and portfolio to Charles@thegainesgroup.com
It’s the turn of a new year and we are happy to share that our team continues to grow with the recent addition of Asha Beck. Asha is a talented young professional entering our industry and is eager to begin her career around other creatives.
Originally from Michiana, Asha moved to Linville, Virginia when she was young and considers the valley her home. Both her home and life are filled with family, friends, as well as her two German Shepherds. She is a recent graduate of Eastern Mennonite University with a degree in Digital Media & Communications and a minor in Spanish. (Deborah also graduated from EMU.) Asha completed a diverse range of design projects in and out of her time at EMU including producing a documentary, designing and translating a website, designing ads for a local business, mural painting, and writing and exhibiting her thesis.
Asha has a diverse range of experience spanning design, leadership, and organization. She has enjoyed many positions and learning opportunities including working in construction, being a camp counselor, leading a club for lgbtq+ students and allies, and being a barista and baker at multiple coffee shops. These experiences have helped develop her organizational and design skills that will greatly support our team and help her succeed in the Office Manager position.
She is also eager to be around fellow design-minded people because there is “just something about being around other creatives.” Growing up, she was always interested in arts and math, which weren’t often paired in early education. She found their intersection in designing spaces both in the digital and physical realms. Over the years, this has taken the form of building construction, website design, accessibility, and graphic design. Architecture is where she found this intersection, and it has been something that she’s been drawn to by her interest in the way spaces can influence our lives. She considers architecture as an option for a future graduate degree.
On the side, Asha enjoys filling journals with doodles, caring for her plants, and throwing pottery on the wheel. You can probably find her learning some new craft or skill or hanging out with her friends and family. She finds energy from a sense of community and seeing people light up when talking about something they are passionate about. She is inspired and humbled by unique perspectives and strives to continually learn from people who are both different and similar to her. She aims to approach design from an adaptable and intersectional lens and is excited to further cultivate her skills while working at the Gaines Group.
Gaines Group Architects has elevated four new partners to the leadership of the firm: James Halstead, Deborah Smith, Adrienne Stronge, and Paul Tassell. They join Raymond Gaines and Charles Hendricks in the leadership of the firm. Raymond founded the business in 1987 and Charles joined as a partner in 2008. This leadership expansion provides resiliency and stability. Charles says, “This is a huge step forward for the business allowing us to better serve our communities. I am very excited to continue to work with each of our new partners for many years to come. Ray has set up an incredible partnership model for how to do business as friends while serving others. This was an obvious next evolution for the firm.”
About the firm: Gaines Group Architects is a firm that has a commitment to designing for the future. We have assembled a remarkably talented and experienced team of professionals to pull all building elements into a single elegant and functional design. Integrity, budget control, effective and timely communication, and a thorough knowledge of current technology, construction methods, and materials turn our promise and your dream into a delightful reality.
Mission statement: Gaines Group Architects is committed to designing for the future and having a positive impact on the lives of the people who live and work in the communities we serve.
Why we do it: Because we want our clients to have comfortable beautiful healthy spaces to live, play, and work.
If there is one thing we know to be certain, it’s that Adrienne Stronge is no stranger to hard work and setting big goals. As a licensed architect with 16 years of experience under her belt, Adrienne is a respected professional in our industry who credits her entry into architecture to small seeds that were planted throughout her life beginning as early as middle school.
Originally from West Point, Virginia, Adrienne grew up loving to read and research. Her first engagement with the world of architecture came when she participated in a governor’s school program that focused on researching historical regional houses. This experience of researching and building a house model planted a seed as she moved into high school and started paying more attention to the built environment. Also during this time, her family began buying and renovating houses which gave Adrienne a front-row seat to the ways small changes could dramatically affect the way a residence functioned. It was also during Adrienne’s high school career someone told her architecture was a “male profession” and that architecture school would be “too challenging” to get into. To that point, Adrienne fully accepted the challenge and earned early acceptance to one of the top architecture schools, the University of Virginia. Like all new challenges, doubt crept in and Adrienne recalls driving to UVA for the first time second-guessing her decision and the path ahead of her. Once she arrived, Adrienne immediately recalls a feeling of reassurance and an understanding that she was exactly where she needed to be.
Fast forward to her senior year at UVA, Adrienne was busier than she could have ever imagined. While taking a full course load, working four part-time jobs (you read that correctly, four!); she was also in the ecoMOD studio where her team built a modular house in an aircraft hangar. The house was built to be transported to Mississippi to aid in Hurricane Katrina relief and Adrienne traveled to the Gulf Coast three separate times to do relief aid and prep work for the Habitat House. Finding time for interviews was challenging and after talking to a few firms in the area, nothing was feeling like a good fit. That changed when, quite out of the blue, Ray Gaines reached out and asked her to interview at the Gaines Group. As it turns out, a former Gaines Group client who interacted with Adrienne referred her to the firm knowing she would be a good fit. Adrienne recalls the funny experience of not being able to find an interview time amongst all of her commitments and Ray asking her to spontaneously stop by on her way to work on the Habitat House. Ray said he didn’t expect her in interview attire and he wouldn’t hold it against her if and when she showed up in jeans with holes and liquid nail stains, and an old t-shirt. Although Ray was not expecting formal attire, he hadn’t mentioned it to Charles and Paul who questioned why the firm would be interested in hiring someone who showed up in a questionable outfit.
Adrienne officially became a Licensed Architect in 2022
Sixteen years into working at the Gaines Group and Adrienne is a licensed architect with a great depth of experience and a specialization in multi-family design. Her favorite part of being an architect is having an impact on the way people interact with the built environment. She has a special passion for designing environments that ensure accessibility for people of all abilities. This passion stems from a close relationship she had with a family member whose progressive disease confined him to a wheelchair. Adrienne was a first-hand witness to the challenges he navigated interacting with his built environment and the frustrations that came when his opportunities were limited due to accessibility limitations. For this reason, she especially loves working on multifamily projects where she gets to create whole communities with access for everyone throughout the site. These projects create unique challenges when considering accessibility, but Adrienne finds it extra rewarding to solve these design dilemmas. One of her favorite elements to design is accessible pools for people with all abilities to be able to safely enjoy. Additionally, she enjoys focusing on multifamily design as she gets to create smaller, efficient spaces that comfortably fit into an overall design goal while meeting budget constraints.
Outside of being an architect, Adrienne is busy with her family and hobbies. She has been married to her husband Andrew since 2007. Andrew is an artist and an illustrator known for live-printing and local comic-cons and together they travel to many of these local events. In 2020, they welcomed their son Alister to their family and the trips to comic shows have slowed down since having a toddler in tow. Their 16-year-old pug-mix Spudnik is also a beloved family member and together they love traveling and exploring new places. Adrienne has no shortage of hobbies and likes to unwind by reading from her large book collection and doing jigsaw puzzles. She and Andrew have a vintage robot and space toy collection that they enjoy “hunting” for at flea markets, antique stores, and yard sales. Andrew runs their small business buying and selling vintage toys, games, and books, both online and in their booths at a store in Richmond, VA (Odd Balls Collectibles).
